


ship wars

by saltyfeathers



Series: Frivolity is the Spice of Life [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, extremely mild dubcon, if it walks like wincest, it ain't wincest, quacks like wincest, talks like wincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:34:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltyfeathers/pseuds/saltyfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tulpa gets into the online "Supernatural" messageboards. Fans of the books are in the midst of a heated discussion, and things get a little handsy. Dean is flustered, Sam is horrified, and Cas is, well, Cas.<br/>Charlie finds it pretty funny, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ship wars

**Author's Note:**

> so when I say mild dubcon, I mean that people's (clothed) butts are touched without their express permission. just so we're all clear.

There’s a lot of awkward situations in life; catching someone staring south when you’re using the urinal, walking in on your little brother jerking it for the first time when he took the term literally and painstakingly having to explain to him that _that’s not quite how you do it, Sam_ , and, of course, accidental ass touches.

Dean’s well versed in all of these situations and more, thanks to his penchant for getting into awkward situations as a requirement of the job. You can only ask someone if they’ve smelled sulphur at a crime scene and have them awkwardly stare back at you so many times before it kind of becomes the norm. Dean has all the faces, all the expressions he can pull to soothe the situation, to get it back on track. He’s been doing this for a long time, and he’s a pro.

However, when he’s driving the Impala down a residential street on a seemingly (relatively) normal day, and his brother reaches over and rests his hand on his upper ( _very_ upper) thigh, even Dean doesn’t have a reaction to that. In fact, no one says anything for almost an entirely too long minute, while Dean sweats and wonders where his ability to make noises went.

“Um,” he finally manages, trying his best to make a joke out of the situation, “I know you haven’t gotten any in a while, dude, but this candy shop’s closed for the night.”

He ventures a glance at Sam, only to find his brother’s face gone puce. Suddenly, like he’s coming out of a trance, Sam rips his hand off Dean’s thigh.

“Sorry,” he says curtly, embarrassment rolling off him in waves. He shifts in his seat, stares out the window for the next seven hours.

***

It was definitely weird, the thigh thing. But Dean deals with weird a lot, and oftentimes in his life, weird and normal get mixed and interchanged, meaning he manages to put it out of his mind, chalks it up to stress, to exhaustion, whatever. It’s forgotten.

It stays forgotten for about two days, and then Dean’s coming out of the shower in a crappy motel somewhere in Ohio, towel wrapped around his waist, and Sam immediately jumps up from where he’s been sitting on the bed, like he’s been electrified.

Dean raises a brow.

“Timmy fall down the well, Lassie?”

Sam huffs a weirdly reverent laugh, says, “something like that,” and suddenly he’s in front of Dean, and Dean almost thinks he’s having a weird fever dream, because no way in hell is his brother caressing his clavicle.

“Dude,” he says, because this isn’t like the car. Right now, he’s pretty exposed and vulnerable, and clavicle caresses are a little higher on his personal “to watch” list. In fact, caresses of any kind are a little… worrisome.

Again, Sam pulls back, like he just got a static shock. His face goes bright red this time, and Dean doesn’t really know what to say, hopes his expression conveys the right nuance. Sam sputters, mutters something about getting some air, and the door to the motel room is closing behind him faster than Dean can register.  

That was definitely escalation from the car.

Dean is confused. Dean is very confused.

He gets dressed, pulls on some old jeans and a t-shirt he usually reserves for sleeping in on the nights he can’t stand the plaid, but equally can’t stand sleeping without some sort of protection.

“Cas,” he says to the room at large, “Need a consult about Bigfoot.”

He waits exactly one two hundredth of a second, and then Cas is saying, “As a seasoned hunter, Dean, you should be well aware of the fact that Bigfoot is a hoax perpetuated by the-”

And Dean is saying “shut up”, and Cas shuts up, because they both know that’s not why Dean called, and Cas is just being a little shit.

“Sam, um, touched me,” Dean says, no interest in beating around the bush, “on the, uh, thigh. And,” he scratches the back of his neck, “Here.” He puts a finger on his clavicle, the t-shirt’s neckline loose enough that he doesn’t have to pull it down far. Cas observes his discomfort with his usual failure to grasp the subtleties of the full range of human emotion.

“Humans express emotion through touch,” Cas says, sounding like a textbook, “Perhaps Sam was just trying to convey an emotion, since he couldn’t come up with the proper phrasing.”

“The ‘proper phrasing’,” Dean snaps, “for a thigh touch? Tends to result in a little more dick touching than I’m interested in with my brother.”

Cas squints at Dean, and it’s his ‘I’m trying to comprehend but not quite able to fully commit’ squint.

“Like, sexual,” Dean says, and flaps a hand uselessly.

Realization dawns on Cas’ face, though it’s cloudy, because anything fully dawning on Cas’ face is rarer than Sam’s wandering hand- which apparently isn’t that rare anymore.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’.”

They stare at each other for a moment.

“What would you like me to do about it?” Cas asks.

Dean’s about to say, “I have no fucking clue,” but then Cas is in his personal space, there’s a hand on his cheek, and there’s about an inch of space between their mouths.

“Okay, this needs to stop,” Dean decides.

He calls a family meeting.

***

“So I dunno if this is a practical joke you two assholes cooked up, or if you both just want my dick all of a sudden, but I think we need to talk boundaries,” Dean is saying twenty minutes later, to a very chagrined Castiel and Sam, who are each perched on the end of one of the beds while Dean paces in front of them.

Castiel and Sam share a glance, and as Dean walks by his brother, Sam reaches a hand out and squeezes his ass, and Dean jumps about a foot in the air.

“Dude!”

“Fuck. Sorry.”

Dean takes a step away from both of them.

“Hands off the merchandise, gentlemen. Jesus.”

Sam hangs his head, contrite.

“So I assume you guys don’t actually want to get sent to sensitivity training?” Dean asks. When both Sam and Cas shake their heads, Dean nods.

“Okay, then. So what could, um… do this?”

“Tulpa,” Cas immediately suggests, making bedroom eyes at Dean. It’s definitely not as creepy as when Sam does it, at least.

Dean can’t help but crack a smile.

“Fastest research session ever. Nice.”

There’s a muffled, indignant mumble of, “I was gonna say that” from Sam, and normally, Dean would slap him upside the head, but he thinks any point of contact right now might be a bad idea.

“It could be a number of things, actually,” Cas continues, “Witch, djinn, siren- but tulpa is the most likely, what with the obvious.”

Sam and Dean both raise an eyebrow, because it obviously isn’t that obvious to them, and ha, no way Sam was actually gonna say tulpa- he looks just as confused as Dean.

“The forums,” Cas says, like that explains it.

Sam says, “oh, fuck,” really quietly, but Dean is still confused.

“What do you mean, ‘the forums’?”

Sam puts a hand over his eyes.

“The shippers,” he says, still quiet.

“Dude, we are not drinking the same kool aid right now,” Dean says, “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“He’s referring to the people who’ve read the _Supernatural_ books and have come to the conclusion that you and Sam are not only brothers, but lovers,” Castiel helpfully supplies, and Dean can’t _believe_ this shit is still following them around, “And with more books published online, I assume people have also reached the same conclusion about you and I.”

“Motherfucker,” Dean says, and Cas says, “No, that’s not generally speculated about,” and Dean rolls his eyes.

“With the books gaining more popularity, and generally attracting very dedicated fans, it’s not a surprise this has happened,” Cas says gravely, “I’m sure someone, somewhere has scrawled enough sigils down that the ingredients are a perfect cocktail to create a tulpa.”

“And then they probably posted the picture on a fucking blogging site, so that hundreds of other people can see it,” Sam tacks on, running a hand through his hair and groaning.

Cas stands up, and Dean immediately takes a baby step back.

“We need to find that picture, and take it down as soon as possible,” Cas says as he takes a step towards Dean.

Sam stands up as well, and moves as if to grab Cas by the shoulder, pull him back. But then, somehow, he ends up grabbing Cas’ hand, and Cas spins around, and then they’re staring into each other’s eyes, and Cas tilts his head curiously, and Sam mirrors the movement, and Dean thinks his eyes are about to bug out of his head, and he’s moving forward to shove them both back onto their respective beds, and then somehow he has one hand on the back of Cas’ neck, and one hand on Sam’s bicep, and there’s a weird vibe, like, _this could really happen_ , and then a car backfires outside, and Dean snaps back to himself like he’s a giant rubberband, and says, “holyshitfuck,” and Sam says, “fuckingshitnuggets,” and Cas says, “huh,” and Dean’s not sure he’s ever dialed Charlie’s number this fast in his entire life.

***

Dean’s fairly certain Charlie is crying with laughter by the time he’s finished relaying the story, but he doesn’t have time to berate her, because his back is to Sam and Cas, and he can feel at least one of them looking at his ass, and he doesn’t even want to know what they’re getting up to back there,  really.

“Give me twenty minutes,” Charlie says, “And I’ll make it all go away.”

Dean breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Thanks.”

“No probs,” Charlie chirps, and Dean hears the tap of her fingers flying across the keys, already in search and destroy mode, “Y’know,” she says amicably, “I’ve seen some pretty furious ship wars in my day, but I have to say, this takes the cake.”

Dean knows he’s going to regret it, but he asks anyway.

“The ship wars?”

“Well, y’know, some people want you and Sam together, some want you and Cas together, and a, um, fairly passive minority want Sam and Cas together. Minus the Sassy, things can get pretty heated.”

Dean blinks, and most definitely regrets asking.

“Okay,” he says, just to say something.

Charlie _hums_ into the phone, and there’s a slightly static-y silence between them. Dean thinks she must be in a pretty fuzzy area if her wonderphone isn’t getting a perfect signal.

“You’ve got to admire their passion, though,” Charlie says a couple minutes later, “I mean, for a fairly poorly written series of books? You guys have some _intense_ fans.”

“Yeah, well, next time Sam tries to flick my earlobe, I’ll be sure to thank them,” he answers snippily.

He can practically hear Charlie’s shrug.

“You realize you guys could potentially use this to your advantage, right? Manipulate the message boards, get a real insider’s perspective, you could have people thinking demons and monsters out of existence or thinking weapons into your hands in no time at all. It’s all about using your resources, grasshopper.”

And- actually, Charlie’s right. He’ll have to remember to mention that to Sam and Cas later, when there’s not the possibility of a threesome on the horizon.

“Done!” Charlie crows. “Picture found. Now I’ve just got to do a little wand waving…” Her voice trails off, and Dean turns around cautiously, hoping Cas and Sam have been able to control their primal urges long enough for this stupid curse to take a hike, preferably forever.

Luckily (or not so, depending on your point of view) they’re both just looking at him, hands all in respectable places.

“Charlie found it,” he announces, and Sam slumps in relief, whereas Cas pops out of existence for a moment, only to pop back into it right in front of Dean’s nose.

Dean’s about to warn him off, but is silenced when Cas presses his mouth against Dean’s, and Dean says, mushily, “dude,” and Sam has a coughing fit in the background, and Charlie is saying something into the phone, but Dean doesn’t hear it over the fact that Cas is _kissing_ him.

“Dean, it’s gone. I deleted the picture from the internet completely. You are now tulpa free.”

No one hears her, but the smugness from her end of the line is obvious.

“You’re still kissing, aren’t you?” she says to no one in particular. When no one answers her, she says, “oh yeah, you’re still kissing,” and hangs up.


End file.
